The windows through which we see wonderful things

About

Hi! I hope you’ll be amused and interested in these posts. I talk about all sorts of fanciful fiction, from SF novels to fantasy video games. I’ve read way too many (and played nearly as much), and managed to start out in a career that’s almost being paid to read — so I have to teach people what I learned while reading. I’d probably whine and talk about those books even if I weren’t teaching. It’s a perfect arrangement!

If you want me to be more specific, here it is: I’m both an academic and a fan, but I have a problem. Academics are often scorned by fans, and, in turn, scorn fans right back. Both these responses suck. An academic is a fan who’s trying to teach, honestly. Even research papers are teaching aids, just for other teachers — it helps people think about books to read other people’s thoughts, even if they disagree. So I thought I would do that, but online. I still do traditional publishing stuff too — if I want to get and keep a job, that’s part of it, anyway, and it’s pretty cool for an editor to pick something of mine — I just wanted to have fun and entertain you while also getting the word out about the stuff I love. So the posts are meant to be fun, and some of them are informative: histories of fantasy/SF, recommendations, “thesis” posts that are like tiny little essays, all that sort of stuff. And hopefully funny!